Part One

"A girl is Arya Stark of Winterfell and I'm going home."

And home she was, wrapped in the arms of her most beloved sibling. She could feel Jon's smile so she smiled too though her smile was a sad one. She had let herself imagine how her reunion with Jon would be since the moment she had decided to postpone her revenge to go North. She had pictured many different ways. She had waited for the emotion to overcome her as they would be face to face. If there was one thing she didn't expect it was her absence of emotion. Even as she hugged her dear brother and was fiercely hugged against his heart, she felt nothing but the same numbness that echoed in her heart since she had left Westeros years ago. She shut her eyes not to cry. She had been certain that she would truly and completely be Arya Stark again once she would have met Jon again. She had been sure that seeing her favorite brother again would open her heart and make like they were never apart. But it wasn't. Nothing could erase what they'd been through. She felt like a fraud in her own home. Maybe she had really become No One after all. Her fingers grasped Jon's cloak and she inhaled his smell, looking for memories but nothing. Of course, she remembered how he would mess her hair and call her "little sister" but it felt like those memories weren't as powerful as they used to be. She changed, she had to. Maybe she lost herself on her way home but maybe she didn't have a choice. The Arya Stark of Winterfell who wanted to learn water-dancing and who saw her father beheaded, she probably wouldn't have last long. Too vulnerable, too short-tempered. For the first time in years, she feared the one she had become. No, she feared the disappointment that would darken his brother's eyes. Because from the way he hugged her, he was hoping to have his innocent, ten-years old little sister back. Clearly he wasn't hoping for a bloody assassin.

Arya's smile faded as she opened her eyes. She had been wrong. This wasn't home. It hadn't been her home for years, she'd just hung on a dream to give her a purpose.

Clenched against her brother's chest, she had never felt more alone and the numbness in her heart never so strong.

To be continued…